


Take a Hint

by New_Elysia



Series: Fatherhood AU [13]
Category: The Chronicles Of Vladimir Tod - Zac Brewer
Genre: AU, Gen, Vampires, a really early christmas theme, and a really annoying suburban mom, fatherhood AU, sort of a christmas thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 01:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12446920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/New_Elysia/pseuds/New_Elysia





	Take a Hint

Of all the things D’Ablo wanted to be doing, standing in line at Stokerton’s mall in the middle of the day was not one of them. But here he was, surrounded by parents and their loud barely controlled children with holiday music blaring from the malls speakers.

The vampire huffed and looked down, the toddler looked back at him and babbled incoherently before pointing ahead of him. There was one of the malls cheap displays of Christmas scenes, complete with the cotton sheets meant to replicate snow and candy canes.

The vampire shook his head, which meant little to the boy. Vladimir leaned forward, hands gripping at the air as he tried in vain to get what he wanted, which were the stir foam blocks wrapped in shiny paper with bows on top.

The boy didn’t seem much for presents outside of their wrapping paper.

D’Ablo leaned over the handle bar of the stroller, his eyes focused on his phone as a flurry of text messages filled his screen. Even during the day time, his work was never done.

Whether he slept or not, something always came up.

And that something normally came from new interns who still couldn’t quite grasp that vampires were supposed to be nocturnal.

Not that he had any place to speak.

And that it would be best that they do their work at night when the council building was full of vampires who were more experienced and actually knew what to do.

The vampire looked down, just to make sure Vladimir was still sitting comfortably in the seat of the stroller. While the stroller was a pain to transport, atleast he wasn’t wondering off when D’Ablo had to check his phone.

The boy held a sippy cup filled up with a mix of juice and blood. It would appear to any wondering eyes that the boy was just drinking any regular old juice.

D’Ablo huffed and returned to answering his messages, there was a part of him that would prefer being at work rather than waiting in a line for the kid to have his picture taken on the lap of some strange old man in a red suit.

But Otis had insisted, his argument being that the boy needed to have the closest thing to a normal childhood as they could possibly give him.

Which included celebrating anything from birthdays to any popular holiday for the boy. Christmas included, of course.

Though D’Ablo couldn’t help but question why they couldn’t just buy the boy presents and watch as he clumsily pulled the wrapping paper off.

It seemed to work just fine for the kid’s birthday a month prior, why not do the same thing for Christmas?

Though D'Ablo still didn't get why they had to celebrate it at all, the most Stokerton did was have a few decorations placed about and an office party that was little more than an ecuse to drink while on the clock.

Vampires didn't take the holidays as seriously as some humans, infact most could care less. The ability to live centuries made such evens less and less special with each passing decade.

Hell, D’Ablo had even conceded to putting a small tree in his house and decorating it with sparkling lights and hard to break ornaments and ribbons in the place of hooks. Of course, D’Ablo still wasn’t sure that the tree would survive the holiday season.

The toddler may be enthralled with the bright red lights and sparkling ornaments, but he wasn’t the one climbing the branches of the fake tree.

His cats were more than happy to take that job and nearly knock the decoration over as they tried to make themselves comfortable.

The vampire glanced up again, the line didn’t look long. In fact in any other situation, a line this long would normally move rather fast.

Unfortunately for D’Ablo, the line was full of parents who wanted the ‘perfect’ picture of their delightful like ‘angels’ and anything less that absolute perfection was cause for raised voices and demands for multiple retakes.    

And D’Ablo was beginning to regret not accepting Otis’s offer to accompany him. He could handle the toddler, after all, if Vladimir was strapped into the stroller and given some blood laced juice and possibly something to preoccupy himself with.

Though the culmination of boredom and the barrage of over played holiday music had already begun to grate on the president.

At the very least, another person would negate the effects of boredom.

As the vampire finished answering the last text, a woman walked up to him.

The president glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, it was obvious to him that she wasn’t a threat. What assassin walked up to their target in broad day light while holding the hands of two children in an almost vice like grip?

Not even a slayer was that stupid.

“May I help you?” he asked, his voice clearly signaling that he wasn’t in the mood to be bothered.

Of course, humans tended to run on the rather clueless side, as demonstrated by the woman’s cheerful voice going “I just wanted to say that he simply looks adorable.”

D’Ablo then glared, what was it with people coming up to him to say how adorable the kid looked? By the reactions of many other vampires, he knew the boy was ‘cute’ he didn’t need the fact to be reaffirmed by every single stranger that walked by.

“Yes, well I’m sure that he appreciates the compliment.” D’Ablo actually doubted that, the little shit couldn’t even remember what he ate a few hours prior.

There wasn’t even a chance that the kid even recognized a compliment, let alone remembered it.

D’Ablo was already ready to end the conversation there, seeing as he returned his gaze to the screen of his phone.

“It seems he takes after his mother, doesn’t he?” the vampire sighed at the question. He wasn’t sure why, but it always seemed like people expected there to be a mother.

Truth be told, he’d never even met the woman or gotten a good look outside of covertly taken pictures that were used to confirm suspicions.

“No, he takes after his father. In fact he’s a smaller version of him.” it was true, even at barely a year, Vladimir looked like a near mirrored version of Tomas. Everything from his hair, to his eyes, and even his face was just a younger version of Tomas.

D’Ablo glanced up to see a rather perplexed look on the face of the woman.

Really? Was his answer that confusing to the blond?

Then again, it was obvious that the blonde color of her hair wasn’t even natural, judging by the dark reddish brown roots at the top of her head. Perhaps those chemicals could be a bit more damaging than one expected.

“Oh, so you’re the uncle then.” It wasn’t a question, that was obvious. “Were his parents to busy?”

D’Ablo rolled his eyes, did he look related to the kid in any way shape or form?

“No, I honestly don’t even know where his parents are.” Again, that was true. The moment Tomas left his apartment after leaving the boy there with him, he may have just vanished off the face of the earth.

D’Ablo also didn’t know a thing about the human woman that Tomas had left Elysia with. Weather she was alive or dead, D’Ablo didn’t know.

The vampire noticed the look of concern now gracing the woman’s face.

He had to fight the urge to face palm when he realized that the one obvious choice seemed completely lost on her.

“He’s adopted.” He said flatly, as if it should be obvious.

“Oh” the tone in her voice denoted that something was wrong with the fact that D’Ablo had no blood relation to the child.

Which somewhat suited D’Ablo just fine, he was just happy playing caretaker for a few years.

Or perhaps she was expressing her distaste at the idea the child was being raised by two men, rather than a mother and father.

The vampire looked back down when Vlad began smashing his cup against the tray of the stroller. The mix of juice and blood sloshing around.

D’Ablo’s phone chimed out again and he returned his gaze to the screen, his lips curling into a snarl as he realized there would be a lot to fix when he got to the council buildings.

Somethings were better off not left to the interns.

“You know, I know a great brand of vegan baby food that this little one would just love.”” The woman suddenly said.

D’Ablo glanced up, he’d hoped his curt answers would be able to convince the human woman to walk away and resume her day as normal.

But, it seemed that she wanted to continue to bother a complete stranger with questions and recommendations he could care less about.

“I’m quite certain that Vladimir is more than happy with the food I feed him.” D’Ablo said, after all. Almost all of the boy’s ‘solid’ food was made by D’Ablo. It wasn’t hard, the child had little in the way of preferences for certain things.

Though, D’Ablo noticed that he wasn’t all that found of meat. Any type of meat really.

He was just happy eating fruits and vegetables, he almost seemed to enjoy them. But when it came to meat, he wouldn’t have it.

Though, it wasn’t uncommon for vampires to dislike the taste or texture of meat. Perhaps the boy would be a blood drinker only, or perhaps he’d grow to like it, there was no way to really know.

“Oh, well my children seem to love it.” The woman said, placing a hand on her chest with a smug smile.

D’Ablo shook his head, there was a saying that if something wasn’t broken, you didn’t need to fix it. And while some things didn’t apply to it, what he fed Vladimir wasn’t one of them.

“No thank you.” D’Ablo turned his gaze back to the kid, whose attention had been grabbed by one of the mall workers, who was dressed in one of those stupid elf costumes.

The poor teenager seemed just as miserable as D’Ablo felt, there were only so many screaming children and obnoxious parents one could deal with in a single day, and D’Ablo was sure her day was far from over.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m quite certain.” D’Ablo was more than well acquainted with people who couldn’t quite grasp the concept of no, all important vampires in Elysia were.

People wanted favors, favors that the presidents and their councils weren’t willing to do.

“I can still give you the name, maybe you’ll change your mind.” She said, D’Ablo narrowed his eyes. Really, what did it take to convince someone to just walk away?

Well nothing short of telepathy and mind control. But D'Ablo didn't quite feel like going into this woman's mind just to convince her to leave him be. There was no telling what he'd find in there.

D’Ablo also doubted that, even if the kid liked the food, it would be considered ‘vegan’ when mixed with blood. Which was something D’Ablo did with nearly everything he made.

The president then looked round, he considered just walking away and heading home. Honestly, having Vladimir’s picture taken wasn’t much of a big deal and D’Ablo considered he could just get a few holiday themed photos taken.

It was then that he noticed something was off, he was sure there had been two children just a few minutes ago.

“Pardon me,” D’Ablo began glanced around again, “but I believe your son has wondered off.”

The woman blinked, then looked around as if she hadn’t even noticed one of her children had run off.

“he’s over there” D’Ablo pointed to a display some few feet away, where the toddler was sitting amidst the oversized plastic candy canes and fake presents “and I believe he’s eating the fake snow.” well, the glittering confetti that had been tossed about to resemble snow.

Honestly though, this woman was lucky someone hadn’t come by and snatched the child up. It seemed like some humans were so unaware of how the world around them was more than a little dangerous.

Back in his day, D'Ablo was quit certain that child would have been devoured by wild dogs or lost in the woods, never to be seen again.

The woman followed his gaze, a look of vague disgust on her face “Oh my god, Chad!”

Before walking away, she looked back at D'Ablo "My name's Karen by the way, have a merry Christmas."

"Yes, well Happy Holidays." the vampire muttered, his phone once again vibrating in his pocket.

"it's merry Christmas" the woman said with a chuckle that denoted disapproval before muttering something under her breath.

 D’Ablo then watched her turned on her heels and begin storming over, dragging the other boy with her.

D’Ablo let out a sigh of relief when she vanished into the crowd. The vampire looked down at the boy, who still seemed enthralled at the sights around him. Big black eyes looking from decoration to decoration.

The vampire leaned down, smoothing back the boy’s soft locks.

“I really fucking hope you don’t do that shit when you get older.” He mumbled, doing his best to ignore the scene the woman was causing.


End file.
